I've just read through Agon and found it very interesting. Especially the competetive aspect. In may gaming group we'll probably play the game when not all of us can participate when we're playing a campaign in another rpg. One of my players raised the a question though. What if a player can't participate in a couple of Agon quests, what about the competetivness between the players? Wouldn't he be loosing most of the tests and conflicts?

One thing that poped up in mind was that maybe there is a possibility to use som sort of weighted award system, a handicap system if you will. Have anyone tried this? Would it be possible?

I'm playing a Agon campaign right now and one of the players came in one session late, what we (him included) decided was that he would start at zero glory, interestingly the players reply to this was "Cool! then I just have to fight harder in order to cover the difference".

It has also came up the hypotheses of not all players being able to make it to every session, so we decided that when that happens we just don't consider him for glory awards purposes and when he returns he'll have the exact same glory he had at the end of this last session and just have to fight harder to cover that difference.

As I haven't played Agon yet, I'm not sure if it's going to be a problem. Maybe, as a player you just have to pick your fights carefully, and get some oaths to back you up with. But, as you said, in the end it's the final score that counts.